Even More on Censorship

Recently, I applied for a job with a filtration company. What kind of filtration you ask? Commercial filtration for all liquids – marketed to a national and international audience. What do I know about filtration? Well I’ve used a Brita filter, I know my car has some filters and someone once deemed the content of a speech I wrote as inappropriate using their “church filter”. The phone interview for this position went well despite my lack of filtration knowledge and my neglect to take physics and chemistry in high school. Since the time of application, I have browsed the company website trying to absorb all the information I can possibly glean about filters.

It was then that I began to think of filtration as censorship rather than simply the purification of liquids. It donned on me that I use various “filters” to strain my speech, behaviour and personality to become acceptable for various settings or social circles. We may have been taught by parents and teachers to be ourselves, be unique and be anything we want; but, we were also conditioned to filter ones uninhibited self because nobody really wants you to be yourself all the time. For example, I snort when I laugh, I snort when I am startled, I snort when others and I are in danger and sometimes I snort when I breathe. When I was a child, someone told me that snorting was the most revolting and unattractive thing a young girl could do and that I should stop doing it right away. From this point on I tried my best to stifle the snort, thus stifling laughter. Every time I met new people I would be sure not to laugh in front of them until I knew that they liked me and that I would not lose a friend if I let out a snort. Including my snort filter, I can think of a number of other filters that I currently use: the ultra fine ‘public appearance filter’, the loose ‘friends filter’, the medium grade ‘dinner with the parents filter’, and the ‘outrageous blog which may prohibit you from getting a job’ filter.

Since returning from a short stint in Africa, where I lived with a host family, I have acquired a new filter, which I call my ‘Africa filter’. This filter comes out mostly when I notice bizarre North American customs or odd aspects of Canadian culture and pause to think about how I would possibly explain the situation or circumstance to my African host family. For instance, making purchases with a credit card when there does not even appear to be an exchange going on. You give your card to the shopkeeper; they hold it for a while and then hand it back to you. Or the moving sidewalks in the airports - Canadians are in such a hurry that walking at a natural speed is a waste of time. This would be a funny one to explain because anyone walking at speeds faster than a stroll in their culture is considered a thief with something to hide. Or showers. Water is always in the house; we never have to carry buckets full of it on our heads and the wells that you cannot see never run dry. Or why we keep so much more food in the house and complain that there is nothing to eat when there is clearly enough to feed us for a week. How do you explain that we can live in the same place for ten years and not know the names of our neighbours? How do you explain that everyone here receives medical care even if they cannot pay? How do you explain why people rioted in Vancouver and caused so much destruction for no apparent reason? These are some of the things that pass through my Africa filter which keep me wondering and remembering that I will never fit, here nor there, I will never be fully accepted.